Method and device for ultrasonic imaging by synthetic focusing

Abstract

Provided are a method and device for ultrasonic imaging by synthetic focusing. The method comprises: exciting a plurality of matrix elements of an ultrasonic probe to transmit plane waves many times, wherein transmitting apodizations at the time of every transmission of the plane waves by the plurality of matrix elements correspond to the respective lines in a measurement matrix in which elements are randomly distributed; after every transmission of the plane waves, exciting all the matrix elements of the ultrasonic probe to receive echo signals, in order to obtain channel data; recovering a synthetic focusing channel data set by use of a compressed sensing reconstruction algorithm according to a channel data set and the measurement matrix; and subjecting the synthetic focusing channel data set to beamforming so as to generate an ultrasonic image.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A synthetic focusing ultrasound imaging method, including:
 activating a plurality of elements of an ultrasound probe to transmit plane waves multiple times, wherein transmit apodizations are formed in each event that the plurality of transmit plane waves correspond to a row in a measurement matrix, wherein elements of the measurement matrix obey a random distribution; 
 after each plane wave transmission, activating all elements of the ultrasound probe to receive echo signals to obtain channel data; 
 recovering a synthetic focusing channel dataset by utilizing a compressed sensing reconstruction algorithm according to a channel dataset and the measurement matrix, wherein the channel dataset is a set of the channel data; and 
 beamforming the synthetic focusing channel dataset to generate an ultrasound image. 
 
     
     
       2. The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the random distribution is a random distribution ranging from 0 to 1. 
     
     
       3. The method according to  claim 1 , wherein recovering the synthetic focusing channel dataset further includes:
 calculating a sparse representation of a signal to be recovered by utilizing the compressed sensing reconstruction algorithm according to: the channel dataset, the measurement matrix and a sparse basis; and 
 performing an inverse sparse transform on the sparse representation of the signal to be recovered by utilizing the sparse basis to recover the synthetic focusing channel dataset. 
 
     
     
       4. The method according to  claim 3 , wherein the sparse basis is a wavelet basis. 
     
     
       5. The method according to  claim 3 , wherein calculating
 l 1  norm minimum solution method. 
 
     
     
       6. The method according to  claim 3 , wherein a measurement signal extracted from the channel dataset in a slow time domain is normalized before calculating the sparse representation of a signal to be recovered; and
 wherein one or more values are recovered from a result of the inverse sparse transform after performing the inverse sparse transform. 
 
     
     
       7. The method according to  claim 1 , wherein in response to determining an element in a m th  row and a n th  column in each matrix in the channel dataset is 0, an element in a m th  row and a n th  column in each matrix in the synthetic focusing channel dataset is set to 0 directly. 
     
     
       8. A synthetic focusing ultrasound imaging apparatus, including:
 an activation transmission module for activating a plurality of elements of an ultrasound probe to transmit plane waves multiple times, wherein transmit apodizations are formed in each event that the plurality of transmit plane waves correspond to a row in a measurement matrix, wherein elements of the measurement matrix obey a random distribution; 
 an activation acquisition module for activating all elements of the ultrasound probe to receive echo signals to obtain channel data after each plane wave transmission; 
 a data recovery module for recovering a synthetic focusing channel dataset by utilizing a compressed sensing reconstruction algorithm according to a channel dataset and the measurement matrix, wherein the channel dataset is a set of the channel data; and 
 an image reconstruction module for beamforming the synthetic focusing channel dataset to generate an ultrasound image. 
 
     
     
       9. The apparatus according to  claim 8 , wherein the random distribution is a random distribution ranging from 0 to 1. 
     
     
       10. The apparatus according to  claim 8 , wherein the data recovery module further includes:
 a first calculation module for calculating a sparse representation of a signal to be recovered by utilizing the compressed sensing reconstruction algorithm according to the channel dataset, the measurement matrix and a sparse basis; and 
 a second calculation module for performing an inverse sparse transform, on the sparse representation of the signal to be recovered, by utilizing the sparse basis to recover the synthetic focusing channel dataset. 
 
     
     
       11. The apparatus according to  claim 10 , wherein the sparse basis is a wavelet basis. 
     
     
       12. The apparatus according to  claim 10 , wherein the first calculation module calculates the sparse representation of the signal to be recovered by utilizing a l 1  norm minimum solution method. 
     
     
       13. The apparatus according to  claim 10 , wherein a measurement signal extracted from the channel dataset in a slow time domain is normalized before the calculating a sparse representation of a signal to be recovered; and
 wherein one or more values are recovered from a result of the inverse sparse transform after performing the inverse sparse transform. 
 
     
     
       14. The apparatus according to  claim 8 , wherein in response to determining an element in a m th  row and a n th  column in each matrix in the channel dataset is 0, an element in a m th  row and a n th  column in each matrix in the synthetic focusing channel dataset is set to 0 directly.